George W. Romney

George Wilcken Romney (8 July 1907-26 July 1995) was the US Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 22 January 1969 to 20 January 1973, succeeding Robert Coldwell Wood and preceding James Thomas Lynn, and Governor of Michigan (R) from 1 January 1963 to 22 January 1969 (succeeding John Swainson and preceding William Milliken).

Biography
George W. Romney was born in Colonia Dublan, Mexico on 8 July 1907 to American Mormon parents. Events during the Mexican Revolution forced his family to return to the United States, and they ended up in Salt Lake City, Utah during the Great Depression. Romney worked a number of jobs, served as a Mormon ambassador in the United Kingdom, before joining the American Automobile Manufacturers Association. He became chief spokesman for the automobile industry during World War II. In 1954, he became CEO of the American Motors Corporation, and he turned around the struggling firm; he was also involved with Mormon religious groups. From 1961 to 1962, he helped to rewrite the Michigan state constitution, and he was elected Governor of Michigan in 1962 as a Republican Party politician. He was re-elected by large margins in 1964 and 1966, and he expanded the size of the state government, introduced the state's first income tax, and supported the Rockefeller Republicans against the Conservative Republicans. In 1968, he fell behind Richard Nixon in the polls during his run for the presidency, but he served as Nixon's Secretary for Housing and Urban Development. He left the administration at the start of Nixon's second term in 1973, as Nixon thwarted many of his attempts to expand affordable housing and to desegregate housing. Nixon died in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan in 1995; his son Mitt Romney would later run for president.